Enlighten Me

    (Little Brown, 2023)

When Bình fights back against a bully who makes fun of his Vietnamese heritage, he expects to be cheered as the hero. He defeated the bad guy, right? Instead, it gets him a stern warning from his vice principal and worried parents. Now he's stuck on a family trip to a silent meditation retreat. That means no talking—and no video games!—for a whole weekend. Could things possibly get any worse? However, when a nun gathers all the kids to tell them the Jataka tales—the stories of the Buddha's many past lives—Bình takes a fantastical dive into his imagination and starts to see himself in these stories. Will he retreat further into himself, or will he emerge from the weekend open to change? With any luck, these next few days will prove more enlightening than he thought.
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